Mark Bell's Power Project - How Coaches Control You: It’s NOT All About Genetics || MBPP Ep. 1107

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

In Episode 1107, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about whether or not lifting weights is beneficial for athletes.   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🥜 Protect Your Nuts With Organic Underwear 🥜 ➢https://nadsunder.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 15% off your order!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Become a Stronger Human - https://thestrongerhuman.store ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/JoinUNTAPPED ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/ ➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Lifting is worthless for athletes. Barry Sanders did back squats. I know he probably did deadlifts. But the reason that he was able to pull this off is because he had spectacular genetics. I wouldn't be where I am without weights. They've made me fast and quick, which is a bigger body weight. Also, I've never been hurt.

You're going to continue using these black people to bolster your program and then saying that they're just genetic freaks. Get the f*** out of here. I think I could squat and deadlift till I'm blue in the face and I probably won't move like Barry Sanders. What they always love to mention too is the fact that this won't work with you because you're not gifted.

Well, when you learn how to move, can you then slowly use load to pressurize your structure, to build durability on your structure, to build durability on your structure, to gain some tissue. It's fine if a guy's not a weight room guy, but the guy better be training. If you guys have been enjoying the content we've been bringing here on The Power Project, consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple.

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So if you can, leave us a review there, and enjoy the rest of the show. Lifting is worthless for athletes. Let's dive into this. From the Lever King. You guys think we're having the Lever King on the podcast? You hear me say lever, not liver. We got to treat.

This is Barry Sanders. This is probably also the most ridiculous run in the history of the NFL that I've ever seen. Now I want you to tell me where the back squat, the deadlift or Olympic lifting or bench presses pop up on the field here. The simple answer is they don't. Now I know Barry Sanders did back squats. I know he probably did deadlifts. But the reason that he was able to pull this off is because he had spectacular genetics. Most people do back squats and deadlifts and they don't move like this.

And you probably won't either if you do them. And you probably won't either if you do them. I agree with some of the statements. Like, I think I could squat and deadlift till I'm blue in the face and I probably won't move like Barry Sanders. 100%. That thing, what he said right there, I think you got to listen to specifically what did he say. He said that if you do back squats and deadlifts and bench press,

you're not going to move like this. That's correct. If you're just doing those movements. But what if we trained with Barry Sanders and did some Barry Sanders like stuff? Maybe we wouldn't move like him, but maybe we could advance. Genetics. Remember, he also mentioned Barry Sanders

has amazing genetics, because you know, black. So obviously if we got on the field with Barry Sanders, we'd just get injured, because I mean, well, I'm black, So obviously if you got on the field with Barry Sanders, we just get injured. Cause I mean, well, I'm black, so maybe I could, but I mean, you know, most, most people, most people- The rest of us were screwed.

Yeah, right? Like they get on the field with Barry Sanders, they're going to hurt themselves cause genetics, right? Shit. And also, you know, I think there has been some recent research showing that for a fact, you know, the higher your bench press, the more income that you make

and the more likely you are to be a professional athlete. Actually, really? Yeah, the more likely you are to have a really hot woman. I mean, we don't even really need studies for it because it's just obvious. I mean, just look around. I mean, we can look within this room who has the biggest bench press.

And then who's made that move. That's what I'm kind of talking about. And of one study just kind of prove that to the point. Yeah. I do think that lifting and correlating it to a football field is just a really interesting thing. I don't know. I don't really know what's right or wrong, but I would say that like in my own experience, being surrounded by many great athletes, doing many different sports over the years,

I would say that lifting oftentimes seemed like a side thing. It seemed like they were a great athlete first, and then the lifting may have been something that they did or enjoyed later on. But even just thinking of Kenny Williams, right, who now does bodybuilding, thinking of a couple of our other friends that we know, that Kayla Wollum and some of these guys

that are just extremely explosive, but we know them to like lift weights now, but they were explosive when we met them and they may be explosive from a bunch of other reasons. Maybe they're genetics and maybe they're epigenetics, like their environment that they're in, environment they grew up in. You know, we can't discount someone's epigenetics

and the things that they've done in their youth because, you know, there's research to show that individuals who are, they just do runs, right? Or they play a sport like distance running when they're younger. People who do field sports, like soccer or football, actually have thicker femurs and shin bones because of the lateral movement that the body has to go through with that sport. You're sprinting, but then you're cutting to the side, cutting to the left. So they actually develop a higher bone density than those who are just running forward in space. Meaning that through that movement, they become more durable without squatting and deadlifting or benching.

Right? So there's, there's... And that's just activity. So now you take that and I wonder, what can we learn from Barry Sanders here if we don't just totally negate what he's doing and say it's his genetics. Because I'm saying this, because that's what he likes to do. And that's what people in his realm like to do. They've done that to me. They've legit taken stuff I've said and said, Oh, he has a great structure. He was born with it. He this is it doesn't come down to any of the work I do any of the stuff I've done and said, oh, he has a great structure. He was born with it. It doesn't come down to any of the work I do, any of the stuff I've done for years. It's just, it's my genetics.

But what can we learn from Barry? Because Andrew, can you pull up something from Barry real quick? I think this is interesting. Mark, can you give me a little bit of history on Barry Sanders and his NFL career? Yeah, I mean, Barry Sanders was untouchable. He could juke people and fake people out

in ways that no one's ever seen before. His agility and stuff was unbelievable. But he's like, and you know, maybe someone's gonna find a stat that this is incorrect, but I believe he only missed like one football game and he had a, like a cracked rib, but he was never, he was, you know, I didn't know him to be like hurt ever pretty much, so.

Oh, it's cause he wasn't rotated with the RG bar. He wasn't able to open up his ribs right away. Yeah, that's why he cracked his rib once in his career. But you know, this is really interesting. Barry's so explosive. It's unbelievable. He pushes the other backs. Always stick a couple of guys that need to be pushed with Barry.

Jerry Schmidt, OSU strength coach. Next quote from Barry Sanders, the black man who you're currently using to market your program, who has 315 pounds on his back and has quad at 600. I wouldn't be where I am without weights. They've made me fast and quick, which is a bigger body weight. Also, I've never been hurt.

I'm sorry, you're gonna continue using these black people to bolster your program and then saying that they're just genetic freaks? Get the fuck out of here. It's legitimately disgusting to me because you're going to discount all the work these people put in and say it's because they were born with it, like Barry, and then you're going to market your shit with that? I love the things that they show and the concepts that they teach people on how to leverage the body, leverage the skeleton,

can handle the movement and the rotation of the rib cage and the scapula. These things are amazing. Contralateral movement of the spine, these things are necessary. But then you're gonna discount certain people because of their gifts. And I would think too, you know,

you think of Kai Green, right? They kind of had that match between Kai Green and the gift, right? Sorry, I'm losing his name for a second. Phil Heath. Phil Heath. The gift. And Phil Heath, they always just were like,

oh, he just has it. And then here's Kai Green who's like working for it. You're like, I'm not buying any of that. Kai Green was a WNFBF Pro Natural Bodybuilder at like 19 years old. He's still 270 pounds and jacked out of his mind. He's like 50 years old. He looks amazing.

Phil Heath still looks amazing. And of course, okay, Phil Heath does have some good genetics. He played basketball and stuff, but he was also doing a lot of stuff. He was very active. And so we have to kind of think about what are individuals doing when they're young? What did Barry Sanders do when he was young?

I don't really know. Maybe he played tag more than everybody else or who the hell knows. But I do know that I would agree to a certain extent that if you had somebody else do many of the same things that Barry Sanders did, they're probably not gonna end up with the same result. And it's not necessarily just a genetic component,

but for some particular reasons, he is a rare breed. His body responded differently. We see that a lot with lifting, and that's what makes it probably so difficult to figure out what makes somebody a great athlete through lifting. Is it a particular lift that they're doing? We do hear a lot of people say,

well, this guy's great despite the way he's working out, despite his lifting. I'll just say this, I think that lifting in general for most sports, obviously it depends on the sport. You're talking about strong man, well, you better be fucking lifting. Talking about weight lifting, well, you better be lifting. You've talked about power lifting,

you better be lifting a lot, often. Talking about bodybuilding, you better be fucking lifting. Talking about weight lifting, well, you better be lifting. You've talked about power lifting, you better be lifting a lot, often. Talking about bodybuilding, you better be lifting a lot. Outside of some of those types of sports, it gets to be trickier. It gets to be more complicated. Should a wrestler, you know, saw a recent post of a wrestler like, you don't work out? And he's like, no.

And his neck is just jacked. And I think that might've been on Nowdy's page as well. The guy is, he looks incredible. And you see that sometimes with grapplers because they are, so we have, we sometimes just say like, it's fine if a guy's not a weight room guy, but the guy better be training. No matter what it is you're doing,

you start to get to higher and higher, higher levels. You better be fucking training. You look at the shift that Barry Bonds made, and I know we can pull in the whole steroid thing. And sure, he has a pedigree, I think his great grandfather and his dad, were baseball players. There's a lot of shit going on with Barry Bonds.

He was born with it. He was born with it and he took a bunch of juice, right? So it's a complicated story. But the gist of it is, it seemed like he was on his way to the Hall of Fame pretty much without maybe even a whole lot of lifting. And he was spectacular. He was stealing bases, he was amazing in the outfield.

He was smashing home runs, he was a great player. Then he bulked up, it seemed like he took some shit and lifted and then he was smashing home runs with Mark McGuire and the rest is kind of history. But it seems like that's the case with most great athletes, Jordan, right? We never heard anything about Jordan lifting until he got that shit beat out of him by the Pistons.

And then he bulked up and he trained, and you see all those montage videos of him doing incline benches and curls and kind of standard, normal, almost like bodybuilding type stuff. And then maybe as a young kid, a lot of people got the impression of like, oh, if I do what MJ's doing, I'm gonna be like kicking ass too.

Maybe, but it's more about the training than it is about the actual lifting. Actual lifting might only make up like, I don't know, like it's hard to put a percentage to it, but if I was to give it a number, I'd say, maybe it makes up 15, 20%, which could be a lot though in the long run. Let's think about this real quick.

I just feel like, you know, FP is amazing because one of the things they think about is the first principles of what the lifting should be doing. So everything that they do always relates to gait. You'll see the contralateral movement of the spine, you'll see the control of the scapula, you'll see them moving with through through space with their gait while moving weight, which is really good. But what if somebody already has that down pat, because what they're teaching people

how to do, this is the really cool thing about functional patterns really cool thing about Wech method really cool thing about these things is because They teach people how to move First because a lot of people don't know how to move Right, then they teach people how to move with weight. Okay, cool What's the next level because you're always using our man our genetically gifted Garberry bonds, right? Bo Jackson, our genetically gifted Bo Jackson. He was born with the structure, but you're using these men as these examples. What is the thing that allows them to be so durable?

Right? Because you mentioned, and what they always love to mention too, is the fact that this won't work with you because you're not gifted. Well, when you learn how to move, can you then slowly use load to pressurize your structure, to build durability on your structure, to gain some tissue after you now know how to move well? Can you do that? It doesn't need to be 315 pounds that Barry has on

his back, but how about not even a barbell? How about a sandbag? How about a kettlebell? How about if you want to mess with a barbell, just starting light and pressurizing that skeleton a little bit, because guess what? You know what a really cool thing is? The population of women that are, older women that have the highest bone density are women that had resistance training.

Powerlifting is actually a sport in that population that actually increases bone density the most. I'm not saying that powerlifting is the best, but the thing to think about here is powerlifting is having the effect of increasing muscle mass and bone density. So how about we marry these fucking ideas? How about we get people moving

and we figure out the slowest ways and different ways to pressurize their structure in a safe way to get something like this. You're not going to be a Barry Bonds. Let's just face it. Most, most, 100% 99.9999 people are not going to be like Barry Bonds, but we can take some of those things he did, whether rather than being defeatist and saying we weren't born with the structure, we build the movement ability, then we pressurize and we build the structure. And we don't have to do it like this.

It doesn't need to be as heavy as this. But we can, meaning we'll be in muscle and bone density, in a safe way. It's so weird to just like say this is going to hurt you. It's going to hurt you if you don't know how to move. And they are correct in that most people don't know how to move. And then they rush into shit like this and then they end up with more pain and the Keyword more dysfunction, right? But it it's it's not because this is bad. It's because you don't know how to move

One thing I do love that functional patterns does is they kind of unload people right because people are you know A lot of people that are training in sports. They're trying to deadlift and squat, bench press, overhead press, maybe they're doing some Olympic lifting. And they sort of take the barbell away, but they still lift. Oh yeah. They're still weighted and loaded exercises. They're just done in a different way. And they're very mindful of movement patterns and they're very mindful of your gait and how you run, sprint, jump and throw and things of that nature, which should be thought about. And they're very mindful of your gait and how you run, sprint, jump, and throw and things of that nature, which should be thought about.

And they're not thought about enough in the weight room. And I love the fact that they're bringing so much criticism to barbell stuff, because as much as I love powerlifting, as much as I believe that powerlifting can bring a lot of things to a person, I think the ideas of powerlifting can be cool, such as like using maximal weights or even more so than maximal weights

as you get more used to the movements, you're not just maxing, you're finding optimal weights. And those optimal weights are doing something way different than a bodybuilding workout. The optimal weights are tapping into your nervous system and they're sort of, they're over time, they can help you to be a more explosive athlete. Over time, they can help you feel lighter

as you move through space. Over time, they can help you to be more robust. So you hear a lot of times people talking about, oh, I don't really lift heavy anymore. And that's fine. Maybe not lifting heavy in comparison to the 500 pound deadlifts you were doing years ago. But I think you're making a big mistake

if you're not still doing some five by fives here and there. We're still doing some stuff that challenges you that you can kind of, stuff that is sort of forcing you to either move a lot slower, like we talked about with the sled. Hunter McIntyre recently was quoted as saying, Hunter McIntyre won the High Rocks Championships

a couple of times for people that don't know what that is. You might have to look that up, but it's kind of a CrossFit-y style thing. But he was quoted recently as saying, there's not many things that a steep hill can't solve when it comes to fitness. And he's dragging four plates up a hill. That's unbelievable.

So that's not, so if you went to Hunter McIntyre, right? And you're thinking like, I'm gonna go to this guy, he's super fit, he's gonna teach me how to like lift, you know? Well, he might teach you how to lift because he knows how to lift and he can do cleans and he's versatile, he's very strong. He can deadlift 500 pounds, things like that. I mean for repetitions, I believe. But what he's going to show you is so many cool things that you can do that are kind of

unrelated to weights. Much like a Jason Kalipa. You work out with a monster like that. Now you're talking about doing rope climbs and you're talking about doing the assault bike and pushing sleds and like doing all kinds of cool crazy stuff. Can we just really quick talk about how powerful the sled is, how powerful it's slaved. Not just because you know you can walk, I think a lot of people think about the sled from Ben Patrick walking backwards right and maybe some people are remembering Louie talking about the sled but the way you can pressurize your body, pull and push from Ben Patrick walking backwards, right? And maybe some people are remembering Louis talking about the sled. But the way you can pressurize your body,

pull and push the skeleton, right? In a safe way. If you have one of the Torx sleds, like the MX sled or the Wheel Bearer, you can put weight on top of that. Now, no matter how heavy it gets, to push the sled through space, you need to learn how to stack your bones against that resistance,

so you can get behind it and push. Stefan, when he was here, talking, you know, the high jumper, he mentioned sucking your body to the ground. I've never heard anybody say that before, but I can't stop thinking about it because I'm like, I suck at that. That's why I'm having trouble with my sprint. I need to be able to get myself, not necessarily like lower,

but I'm not comfortable in that almost like ass to grass split squat that Ben Patrick does. And not that you need to do that to sprint, but you see that with sprinters, their legs are able to move very fluidly in very mobile ranges of motion. You know I'm gonna come back to the slide but the one little cool thing is FP they love to shit on the ATG split squads and they'll say oh wait until all the knee replacements from the split squad. Climber mobility. Climber mobility. You are moving through space you're

controlling that range of motion yes you're not lifting your back leg up and taking a step forward and gate so it doesn't reach your first principle shit. But at the same time, you're learning how to get into that deep range while also having extension in that back hip. That that that back hip flexor is learning how to lengthen, which is why a lot of people that actually improve at that safely progress it without loading it too crazy. And they're able to work with load, find that they're able to now sprint better because they have more range in their hip flexors front and back, okay?

Now, back to the sled. If we're talking about a way to safely load your body and work all of your muscles in tandem while moving an object through space, backwards and forwards sled pushes are great. You get yourself the shake strap handles, right? And you add that as an attachment. Oh my God.

The amount of different ways you can push and pull that object in different ways. You can now pull the sled with a single arm, learning how to organize your body to move that heavy weight through space. And you only move the amount of weight that you're able to move. You don't move so much. If you can't handle it, you won't move it. If it feels uncomfortable,

it's not going to move. But once you find the correct position for your skeleton to be in to move through space, you're now moving hundreds of pounds through space with your body. Your whole body from your feet to your head. And not loaded vertically on you. You're not loaded vertically, which is something that they hate. And honestly, when it comes to the vertical loading, the actual loading of the spine, they have a lot of really good points there.

Who's this? That's Mark Bale. Oh, okay. Push and then pull on a sled at the same time. There you go. Double-hand. 700 years ago. Yeah, I just wanted to pull it up because, yeah, I was like, do you ever remember an old ass video from,

I don't even know how many STs ago this was, but I'm like, yeah, Fat Mark was pushing and pulling sleds for ever. Even when I was fat, I was pushing and pulling a sled. Look at those, and there's prototype wagon wheels in there. Yeah, yeah. Look at you bending down. When you bend down, you probably held your breath.

Yeah, that looked hard. That looked like I could barely, barely reach the sled. But, you know, about the sled, like it's one of those things where, okay, actually we're talking about actual loading of the spine. I get why that's not great for a majority of people to start out with. A lot of compression. But the thing is, a few things happen when you're an athlete doing that. First off, when you do a bit of that compression, when you go back to your sport, especially if you're someone who sprints through space and you're a good spr that compression, when you go back to your sport, especially if you're someone who sprints through space

and you're a good sprinter, sprinting causes natural decompression of the body when you're good at it, when you know how to do it. Unfortunately, most people don't know how to sprint. So somebody like Barry goes from that compression. This is why this is so good for Barry. And this is why this is actually so good for athletes that need to stack on fucking tissue. Because if you're a football player, if you're any contact athlete, it's good to stack on tissue.

Okay, we're not living in the fake functional world here. We're living in a world where you're getting hit by people and you need to be like a Barry. You gotta bulk. To be able to handle hits. You gotta have muscle, but you gotta have muscle and be functional. And Barry had both. Why is Barry able to do this? He probably wasn't doing FP.

We know he wasn't doing FP, but what he was doing was doing a sport that would make him sprint. When he's sprinting, Barry has that down pat. Barry's been doing that since he was a kid. He knows how to be long, right? He knows how to sprint. So he'll compress his body, get strong,

build that bone density. And then he'll have a practice like sprinting on a field laterally forward, backwards, that is decompressing his skeleton. Most people don't have that. Most people in the gym just go for compression into life where now gravity is continuing to push down on them and they're heading here and in pain.

But do we have a practice that can give you some decompression? That's where rope flow comes in for me. And that's where sprinting comes in for me too because I can decompress myself on the sled where rope flow comes in for me. And that's where sprinting comes in for me too, because I can decompress myself on the sled with rope flow outside on sprints, but the rope gives you a natural traction of all of your joints. The greatest football player of all time, in my opinion, is Deion Sanders.

No one ever really moved like him. I mean, Barry Sanders moved in some unbelievable ways. He unfortunately didn't play quite long enough to like lock in his like legacy. Tom Brady is obviously amazing and you can't take away how many rings he has and all this other stuff, but Dion was just different. Dion didn't lift, right?

No, he didn't give a fuck about lifting. All these guys would lift later on because they sort of had to. I remember like Bo Jackson, he was saying, he was at the University of Auburn and the coach is like, you gotta get out there and run with everybody else. And he's like, running is for people that aren't in shape.

He's like, I'm ready to go. Like, see me on Saturday. Like, I'm gonna run for 200 yards. Like, what more do you want from me? And I think with Dion, he knew what he needed. And so he would lift a little bit, I think, as he got later in his career, because there's strength coaches.

There's people up your ass, and there's people like, in the NFL, you get fined if you don't work out. So they want you to work out. But I would imagine, again,'m sure he like did some lifting just to satisfy some of the coaches or whatever, but it's not like the training, the focus on lifting isn't tremendous. It's not huge.

It's like, hey, I want you to do these cone drills. I want you to cover these receivers. I want you to do these butt kicks and these high knees and these other drills that are mimicking stuff that can help make you explosive. And then, yeah, maybe you're still doing some lifting, but I think a lot of these great athletes, they don't lift nearly as much as you'd think.

The thing that I keep going back and forth on and one of the principles of FP that I really like, which I don't necessarily always agree with, but they just think that people are moving in like hazardous ways. People are sort of all over the place, like go to the airport, you know, go to a coffee shop, just watch, you know, go downtown somewhere,

watch people walk by, and you'll just see, it looks like people are walking in like multiple directions at the same time. Their shin is pointed one way, their feet are pointed out, their hips are like down, they got like a flat butt or like bent knees and bent elbows. And they're putting a back, a fucking barbell on that back. Yes. Right.

So that's what they're talking about. A lot of times it's like everyone's moving around with these unfunctional movements or not necessarily unfunctional, but just shitty movement patterns. And then now we're trying to load them. It's like, whoa, wait a second. Maybe we shouldn't be loading anything until we figure out how to move a little bit better. And I think their conjecture on some of that

makes a lot of sense. And I love the fact that they're just stirring shit up. They're kind of stirring that pot and they're saying, hey, look, what if all of this is wrong? And I actually really liked that. I really appreciate that. I think that there's, because we should be looking at it. We should be examining it.

When it comes to something like bodybuilding, it doesn't appear there's like another way. It seems like bodybuilders have figured out a way. They figured out the way for them to get the biggest and be in the best shape for their competitions. And maybe it's not the healthiest endeavor ever if it's not a natural bodybuilding or maybe even natural bodybuilding

is not the healthiest thing. Power lifters seem like they got it sort of figured out. Strongman guys seem like you got it figured out. But when it comes to sports, it seems to be really complicated on exactly how someone should train. But I do agree, like, let's start off with the basic idea of let's figure out how to get you to move well,

how to get you to move better, and then we can start to figure out how to load at that point. You're trying to get healthier and you're probably eating chicken for every meal or the same beef cuts for every meal. And trust me, I know how good some cuts can be. You can make anything taste good.

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off your build the box. Again, goodlifeproteins.com, link is in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I want to say some nice things about functional patterns too since I started off being heated and naughty. I first actually want to go back and be like, I don't take back anything that I mentioned there because I truly despise the idea of people like that saying things about athletes

like this and they even said it about myself. And I despise it just because you take away everything that's been done and chop it up to who my mom and dad was or who his mom and dad was. Real quick before you maybe switch gears on that like wavelength, my thing is as somebody who would look at anybody with abs or anybody that was strong or anybody that was athletic, I said it was genetics and or steroids, right? That's just where I lived. One of the reasons being is as a kid, I was an athlete,

I loved playing sports and all of a sudden, everybody got bigger than me. Everybody got stronger, faster, better. So I'm like, oh, okay, shit, I'm not a gifted one or whatever, you know? Fast forward, I started getting into pain. Now I'm like, wow, I was really dealt a shitty hand of cards. Moving forward, oh, get into some of the David Weck stuff,

get into go to stuff, get into FP stuff. It's like, holy shit, now I'm doing jujitsu. Oh wow, I went from somebody who wasn't gifted to, wait, I don't think I'm gifted, but I'm doing the things that I said gifted people do. So why the heck would I still identify as somebody that wasn't dealt a good hand of cards? Right?

So like, I understand. Yes, you're like, okay, I'll never be a Barry Sanders. I'll never be a Mark Bell. I'll never be an Ncma Inyang. But that doesn't mean I can't really improve and become one of those athletes that competes, that trains on a regular basis. Yeah, me being who I am will not impede you

to be a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu. Exactly. Has nothing to do with it. And me who I was won't impede either, right? And again, just kind of going back to that whole like identifying thing, I did identify as somebody with back pain. I identified with somebody that was incapable

of training Jiu-jitsu. And then things started changing and I started literally believing I was a different person for a little bit. But then I'm like, Oh shoot, I'm now the person that I thought was somebody that was just literally born with it. I don't know if I guess maybe there's an argument like, Oh, you were born with it. You just didn't, you know, whatever, like uncover it. But no, man, I spent 27 years really not doing anything of amazing. Right. I did get into the gym, but I got hurt in the gym a lot. Improper training is what I chalked that up to.

But if I were to sit here and be like, yeah, I'm still not a gifted person. I would, I mean, I don't know if I would be like kind of shitting on all the work that I've done. Like, I don't know, I guess I still have a chip on my shoulder for that, but what I'm getting at is I think it would be silly for me to still identify with that previous version of myself that was angry at the people that just didn't have pain.

I don't know where that would get me, how that would, it just wouldn't improve anything I'm already doing. And so that's the one thing that I get it, it's a really, really cool marketing thing to be like, hey, you don't look like these guys, you're one of us, look at what we can do. But then it's like, if you look at what you guys can do, it's like, I would have been saying the same thing

about you guys, right? It's just a little, you know, but now I's like, if you look at what you guys can do, it's like, I would have been saying the same thing about you guys, right? It's just a little, you know, but now I'm like, oh wait, no, you can become kind of whatever you want. I want to point out something super interesting. But before that, I want to also say that the three of us are also very, we are fortunate. We are very lucky. None of us have any sort of life threatening disease. We don't have anything that hampers us.

We don't have like, you know, there's people that have all kinds of conditions and things that like literally prevent them from doing certain things. And they're things that you're just born with. So from that standpoint, we're all fairly lucky. We're all fairly lucky that we're six foot and above, or I probably shrunk down a little bit,

but we're all like grateful for some of those gifts. And we do have probably, you know, maybe better than average genetics. Like I think there's no reason to not admit that. There's a lot of strength in my family. My brothers were both very strong. And I was pretty strong when I first touched weights without really doing anything

other than just being like a bigger kid than some of the other guys. But I do think it's also interesting to point out as the three of us are evolving and getting better, we're lifting less in the traditional sense. In the traditional sense. We still lift and train and we train very hard and we still do a lot of stuff and especially for you.

My bone density went from 7.2 to 7.7 from May to now. Okay, that, and by the way, 7.2 means 7.2 standard deviations above the norm, that's where I was. Before that, I had a little lower bone density. It's cause you're black. It's cause I'm black. Blacks have the biggest bone density, the blacks. Biggest boners.

But, but, still training, not in pain, moving better, moving better than him, 7.2 to 7.7. And talking to the Dexa person over there, what does she say about people who resistance train? All these people who come in after the age of 30, 40, 50, that start resistance training, they all gain some muscle and some bone density. And they're not all black.

Holy shit. Even the white women gain bone density and muscle from resistance. What, they're not black? They're not one of the blacks? What? Oh shit. That's crazy. Something wrong with the machine over there.

What you're saying. Yeah, you know, I think, you know, as we've been evolving, we've been changing a bit. And that's something that functional patterns will also mention. They'll say, well, I believe that that guy moved into doing something different because what he was doing previously didn't work for him.

And I think that that's an interesting way to look at it. I disagree with it a little bit because for myself, there's not really anything that I wanna do forever. I wanna constantly evolve. I want to learn and I want to understand my blind spots. And as I move forward, I want to say, you know what? I'm gonna stop complaining about that thing over there or stop saying that thing over there is dumb.

I'm just gonna actually do it myself. And I'm gonna try it for a few weeks. Oh, this rope flow thing. This is dumb, stupid. Oh, actually, I think this is kind of neat. Like, oh, this might be helpful. This might be useful. Functional patterns. Oh, that seems wild and crazy. You know what? I'll just do it. I'll hire a coach and I'll just do it. This whole sunlight thing. Like how much, yeah. How much sun, you know, should you get, you know, how much of this should I buy into? Let me just, let's go and I'll see. Am I healthy or is it working?

And the things that I feel are working, I'm gonna continue to implement them. And then every once in a while, you sometimes will forget about hidden gems, such as like the sled. You'll kind of forget, like I've been doing the sled for like decades, but you kind of forget about stuff

because then Seema's juggling kettlebells or there's this or that going on. And I'm like, let me try some of these moves. Let me try some of that. And then something gets kind of lost. And then you're like, no, that actually was great. So I do agree, there's things that probably aren't working or serving people well,

but there's things at different times in your or serving people well, but there's things at different times in your life that are going to serve you at different times for different reasons. And I think when you're between the ages of 20 and like 45 ish, you can go outside of that if needed. But I think in those age ranges, that's when you want to really try to get after it. That's when if you're going to be walking around with extra muscle mass, and you're gonna be doing these cool things, I think those are the ages to do it. And then as you get older,

you may have to just look into, not because you're gonna be forced to, just because it's wise, just because it's like, it's a smart thing to do. And Barry Sanders, by the way, walked away from football without a scratch, on his own terms, one of the only people to ever do that.

He just was like, I'm out. And it was because the lion sucked so bad, it was part of it, but he came and went, you know, kind of unceremoniously. The same way when he would score a touchdown, he would just flip the ball to the ref. Oh yeah, that documentary was so cool. Yeah. Yeah, that was so crazy. Yeah, he just was like, you know, his dad said, hey, pretend you've been there before.

Yeah, that's your job is to get in the end like, you know, his dad said, hey, pretend you've been there before. Be humble. Yeah, that's your job is to get in the end zone. So what? You got in the end zone. Yeah. So flip the ball to the ref. And that's kind of the way he retired too. He was fine. Like he could have played another four or five years

and probably been at the top of his... Yeah, he was at the top of his game. He was crushing it. And he just, he walked away. But that's a really smart move from somebody that kept himself in the game by being very durable. Had he not done that, maybe he would have been in a more compromised position. You see a lot of these guys are, you know, unfortunately they have head injuries and

all kinds of stuff. They're getting hip and knee replacements and everything else. And I like, I'm now like, you know, I was going to say this earlier, but I do want to give like all these people their flowers. I came after what he was saying there because I hate this chalking people up to their genetics and discounting all of the work that they've put in. Yeah, they might have some advantages, right?

They might have it, but at the same time, it's not a gift. It is decades of work that is added up to the mutant of a specimen that you're using in your marketing. On the other flip side of things, functional patterns, WEK method, the things that we've learned from these individuals, it's so good that it's flipped a lot of people in terms of what they're doing in the gym, the standard things. And it's amazing that functional patterns continues to call out squat bench deadlift in the way they do.

Because when you think of the mass, when you think of most people, right? The person that will go into the gym with the issues you're talking about, they come off the street, they're already sedentary, not have the greatest nutrition, they're at a desk like this, their body has all these issues because of just not walking much, not moving much, not doing much of anything, and then they go into a normal gym to try to do a deadlift or a typical barbell squat or bench repeatedly on their frame.

Man, it's great that Functional Patterns is calling that out in the way they do because one thing is a lot of people that are pure bodybuilders or pure powerlifters, right? When some guy looks at a bodybuilder and is like, I wanna look at that, they don't realize that that bodybuilder has knee pain and back pain and can't move well.

They see what the person looks like, not what the person moves like. And functional patterns isn't focusing. David Weck isn't focusing on what the person looks like, focusing on what the person looks like because they're focusing on what the person looks like, focusing on what the person looks like, because they're focusing on what the person moves like. Because the thing that's important as you get older, isn't just what you look like.

It makes a difference, don't get me wrong. Like you do wanna be leaner, you wanna have less body fat, you wanna have muscle tissue, you wanna build your structure. But at the end of the day, when you're 60, 70, 80 years old, which functional patterns and We I can all these people think about, they're like, are you gonna be able to move

around and potentially run and maybe even jump and do the, those are the experiences of life. Or would you rather have some muscle and be chair bound and not feel at home in your body? No, no. See, they're thinking about the long-term, which is good. And it's gotten us to think about the long-term.

Over the years, we have transformed and evolved, and we still fucking lift. But we've changed things to how I'm not in any pain. And I know I move well, and I can say that confidently. You can say there's, this guy that was here before, he was like, I'll find it in a Finchless Deezier movement. It's like, you don't move like me. And I know you don't.

I move better than you 100% any day of the week. But I learned aspects of that by watching them, by seeing what happened and putting that into what I do. So thank you, David Weck and Functional Patterns and all you cats, thank you. They're so mad you lumped them all in together too. Because they're doing a lot of the same concepts, but they're enemies for no reason.

Weck, Naughty, they have so many of these amazing concepts, but I don't know if there's like beef from the past. Right? We didn't know any of this going into this. That's the best part, yeah. Yeah, and then I've had conversations behind closed doors with some of these guys and like, I think you did this this way,

cause then you wanted to talk to us after this. And I'm like, no, no, no, there was no, Oh, no way. There was no organization of like when I was trying to, I just happened to find each one of you at different times. Yeah. Now that he's been around for a long time, but I really didn't follow or know a ton about him until probably the last like three years. I think you actually pointed him out to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't really, yeah, I didn't really know, no.

I didn't, I remember seeing a video like a long time ago of him with a barbell and he was moving a barbell back and forth and walking with it. It was a viral FP video back in like 2013 or so. And I remember thinking that was really cool, but I'd never really, you know, at that time, I was still fat Mark powerlifting. So I just wasn't paying a lot of attention to it. But you know, some of the greatest athletes

and some of the greatest fighters of all time have, you know, completely dominated. And you think about like, what are you responsible for in a fight? Responsible for everything. You know, if you're an MMA fighter, you're in the UFC or even jujitsu, some of these grappling sports,

you're responsible to be, you gotta be fast, you gotta be quick, you gotta be agile, you gotta be able to react, you have to have stamina, you obviously have to have a great skill set in the sport. You're responsible for everything. It's not, you know, maybe, you know, in football, if you're an offensive lineman or something like that, maybe because of the position,

you're not responsible to like, to be able to run five miles or something like that, right? Whereas the wide receiver might need to be able to do that. Same thing with soccer. You've got different positions. You can be responsible for different things. But in fighting, you're kind of responsible for everything.

And you have to have so much ability in so many different ways. And I'm thinking about our topic right now is super interesting because when I think of, I think the greatest fighter of all time is John Jones. And I think a lot of it, I mean, obviously there's so much that goes into like his physical prowess and how big he is and how tall he is. And that wingspan.

It's just, there's a lot going on there. Yeah. But we can't, you can't undersell his mindset. He talks differently to the fighters. When one fighter, when they're going back and forth and he says something, it's like record skip. I'll kill you. Yeah. You're like, whoa, we were just like, I was going to say, I'm going to take you down, I'm going to kick your ass. You know, and then he's like, yeah, I'll kill you. You're like, and his eyes. Don't those kids disconnect?

You're like, that's different, man. Like, holy shit. Even the way he trains is unconventional. And I know that more recently, you've seen John Jones lifting some heavy weights in the last maybe several years. But I don't really know if that's been something he was doing prior.

But if you watch him, even now, when he lifts heavy, does heavy deadlifts, heavy squats, some heavy partial range of motion work, but he also is, he's also going on these hikes in New Mexico at pretty high altitudes. He's doing some really, he's doing some unconventional stuff.

He's going on his bike a lot and doing a lot of different things. But this is the cream of the crop. Ooh! That was a really good breakdown. That was cool. There's no one nastier, man. But you know, the cool thing here,

you know, we were talking about this earlier, watch Jon's scapula, bro. Watch like his, his, his, his, like when you saw him pause that, take that guy's hand and then swivel his scap forward, he, he... I mean, he's doing it a little bit too. Right?

You guys would love this. He was in a sparring session with somebody one time and you know, they're just, they're just training. They're like literally training, you know, there's different elements of training. There's different times where you train different ways, right? Yeah. It's supposed to be like a relaxed training session.

And this guy just went at him. The guy just completely leveled John Jones. And John Jones was like, dude, we're done. Like, I'm never sparring with you. Like, that was cool. Whatever. Like you felt like you were getting one in on me or whatever. And, you know, but...

He probably just didn't want to kill the dude. Right. Right. He's like, we're done here. Yeah. Yeah. Because what's John going to gain from shutting that guy up? Yeah. Absolutely nothing.

Another example of one of the greatest athletes or two, you mentioned this before the podcast, Hoise and Hickson. Yeah. Right? Yeah, Hoise no lifting, I don't think at all. And they used Hoise as the example in the UFC, because they didn't want to use Hickson. And Hickson sells a store, because Hickson was too jacked.

So they're like, we want to show Jiu Jitsu. But Hickson did something story because Hickson was too jacked. So they're like, we want to show Jiu-Jitsu. But Hickson did something called himnastica natural, which is literally just like movement, calisthenic movement. He'd sometimes have a bar and he'd be doing stuff like this. But when you look at him, you look at his body positioning. You look at the positions he's trying to get,

he's able to get into. Some would look at this and say, oh, there's too much joint laxity, et cetera. But he's doing all of this in movement. He has full body control in these ranges of motion. And when you're a martial artist, you need to have control over all ranges of motion. It does. It would make sense.

It wouldn't make sense not to get into them, but look at that, right? Rolling around the sand on the beach and like, you know, it's funny because if you were walking past this and you're walking on the beach, you'd be like, what is this guy doing? You know? And almost his arms fell off. His arms. And now what was going on there was Hickson let his joints get lax. He's, he's letting, he's using his spine and letting his skeleton rotate off of his spine. Like it's, yeah. And you need to know how to do that. In fighting, you need to know how to let go, go Gumby, like Hickson just went right there, and then tighten

back up. Let go, and then tighten back up. You need access to both. And it's just amazing. And yeah, he didn't lift. So there's another, there's another to the FP, guys. Every time someone pulls you, you don't always just want to resist the same way, right? Sometimes if you go with it, might trick the guy or you can sweep them or right? Like you can, you can manipulate your speed, like a change up in baseball. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's exactly it.

Right? So, yeah, this is the thing. I don't think that every athlete needs to lift, But the thing is, is like, I also think that what is the hurt in an athlete in almost any sport having some aspect of resistance? FP, their resistance comes from the cable machine, which is good, right? But can you grab a sled as an athlete,

pull and push a sled? Can you pick up a sandbag? It's more like picking up a human, right? And you don't have to start with a 150 or a 100, you can get yourself a 50 pound sandbag, and literally, I treat the sandbag like a human, and I throw it around. Yeah.

Right? You throw around humans? Yeah. Right? Can you add some resistance to your frame while also improving your movement ability? Absolutely. And that's not just for people with that,

that are in sport, right? No, no. I remember something like they were kind of saying that like, Oh, that's good. Oh, what? I'm sorry. Look. Oh, Hickson training his neck. Pulling a truck with his like forehead basically.

Wow. Learning how to create tension in that neck so that it's removable. Wow, Hickson, so maybe I was wrong. Hickson did resistance train. Just not with the barbell. Not with the barbell, yeah, that's the thing. It doesn't have to be at the barbell, but you got to ask resistance.

And you know, we can't forget to mention Herschel Walker who famously just supposedly did pushups and sit-ups and you're like, you who famously just supposedly did pushups and sit-ups. And you're like, you got that physique out of pushups and sit-ups. But he did a lot of pushups and sit-ups. He was born with it, that's why. Most people wouldn't get as big as Herschel Walker without pushups and sit-ups, I know that.

There's something else going on there. Yeah, he was incredible. See if you can bring up a picture of, first of all, yeah, bring up a little bit of Herschel Walker for a second. Wow. But there's, you know, you're gonna- Oh, he's stretching. I'm sorry. I just gotta mention this. Static stretching. Hickson was doing some static stretching.

And Hickson still does jiu-jitsu to this day. It seems that static stretching didn't break his body down. Interesting. Ah, he's got body down. Hmm. Hmm. Interesting. Ah, he's got the genetics, okay. Oh yeah, all the stuff he does with his abdomen and all the breathing stuff like that. I mean, that's gotta be stuff that helps protect you as well in, you know, in Jiu-Jitsu, right?

Yeah, like one of the things that you, like Hickson has great control of what his rib cage is doing. He has awareness of where his rib cage is in space. And there's a little thing where a lot of people don't know where their ribs are. A lot of them are here or they're here. Hickson knows where neutral is, and you see what he's doing right there,

learning how to vacuum and manipulate his diaphragm and rib cage. There's a lot of deep things going on with his understanding of his body positioning that is just like so crazy. But it takes trying these things and understanding and worrying on these things. But I just find it funny that he's static stretched.

He's like, I think he's like 200 and oh, or something like that. They don't even know. They don't know what is right. But they just know that I believe he never lost. I want to have a serious conversation with you about your balls. And I'm being serious here.

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Links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. I want to see what Herschel says here. I didn't grow up. My parents didn't have a lot of money. My high school didn't have a lot of money to afford a lot of the expensive weights and you know, all this stuff. And I didn't use that as an excuse. I started doing pushups and sit ups during commercials as I was watching TV and started

doing about, you know, sometimes 2000 pushups, 3000 sit ups, 1500 pull ups, dips are,, 3,000 sit-ups, 1,500 pull-ups, dips or 1,000 dips and different things like that. Pause. And I started creating different hand positions for all that and then I learned that that can work you out. Okay, pause. Can we just understand how much volume that is?

Because you know what? People are gonna say, that's not true. No way he did that. He did. This is the thing, he did. Herschel Walker didn't just get big by sniffing air and eating oranges as much as people would like to think that he's just black and can do that.

Herschel Walker probably- Probably peaches, he's in Georgia. Oh yeah, peaches in Georgia. Herschel Walker put a disgusting amount of body weight volume on his frame. Have you guys ever seen those guys that do calisthenics, that can do push-ups on their wrists? And did you hear how Herschel Walker just said, I put my hands in different positions to stress my body in different ways?

That's how Herschel Walker was stressing his bones and his joints while doing thousands. So this thing, you could do some weights in a weight training room, but if you don't have access to that, are you willing to resist and train with thousands of reps? Herschel did. That's one of the reasons why Herschel was so big. I think supposedly they came to him with some marketing idea of him selling weights, and he's like, I don't use those. He's like, I can't market that. I don't actually use that. But he did have resistance. I think that's the thing that can't market that. I don't actually use that.

But he did have resistance. I think that's the thing that we got to realize. People might think it's a lie. It's not. Imagine Jordan saying that's like McDonald's or something. Like, I don't actually eat that way. It's like, nah, I'll take the money. Money sounds good. Who else we got lifting over here? We got Noah Lyles. Oh, the freshest man in the world. But maybe they can make them faster.

Oh, like you say. Yeah, when people are doing cleans, it's always crazy. You're like, man, I don't know, like the form and technique of a clean, but you know, you know, I think we undersell the value of just people just feeling really good about something that they're doing. And so there's potential that this is like, there's some potential that this exercise in particular isn't the greatest. This clean and jerk that we're showing from Noah Lyles, but we can't undersell the value. Like maybe everything that Hickson did, maybe not everything was amazing for Jiu-Jitsu, but maybe there was things that just made him feel better. Therefore, like if it makes him feel good,

if it helps advance him, it helps him grow. Maybe the things he's doing with his stomach, maybe it's a waste of time, like who really truly knows? It's hard to tell, but he feels and he believes, you know, your beliefs are massive. So if he believes that it's doing something beneficial for him, then that's why he was able to win 400 fights. Yeah.

For example, using this example of Noel Isles doing that clean, and we'll come to this, if we've assumed, but Noel Isles doing the clean, right? Noel Isles has been doing a lot of weightlifting. I've been seeing a lot of videos of him lifting. And he's one of, actually he's the strong, he's the fastest man in the world right now. It makes him feel better.

And I see comments from trainers that are like, he's the fastest in the world despite his training. But let's think about like, even though the form isn't your classical Olympic lifting clean, the force that this 155 pound man is creating to explosively lift this barbell off the ground. It may not be clean, but let's think about this. Nothing in athletics is perfect.

Nothing in athletics is perfect. Nothing athletics is perfectly coordinated and goes the perfect way on any athlete's day. Even though sprinting is a mechanical, same type of thing, the sprinter might have one kind of iffy step and there's this micro adjustment that athlete will make to make sure that their next stride is perfect, right? A grappler may have a slight twinge and it may get thrown in a certain way, but then

has to make an adjustment to move back into the correct position. Noah Lyles had bad form right there, but is dynamic enough and has such skill and body awareness to create that much force and find a way to keep the barbell up and safe. It might not be your strength coach standards, but the thing is, is you are not as fast and you are not as powerful as Noah Lyles, even though you're such a great coach.

So this is still benefiting him, even though you don't like the form. He's still a great, he's not a great athlete despite this. He's a great athlete because he has the ability to recover and do this. Because Lord knows that a lot of coaches can do a super clean clean and can barely run a 15 second hundred.

What? LeBron James, can you show me that picture, that video of LeBron James squatting? LeBron James, people were fucking coaches were making fun of LeBron James, can you show me that picture, that video of LeBron James squatting? LeBron James, people were, fucking coaches were making fun of LeBron James on social media for his squat. Everyone was like, oh, look at how bad that squat is. Look, he's not even going knees down.

Can you jump 45 inches? Can you dunk a basketball at 40 something years old? Can you sprint down court faster than most people in your league? And, oh, but he squats like this. So it's kind of dig those. It looks pretty good. Like he's, he's shoving the hips back. Maybe if I was given any criticism, he's like maybe a little over arched, over arched. I like that he's pushing the hips back and he's staying away from like the knees. So, you

know, you never know what, what the coach is using some of these exercises for even. Yeah. It may not be like he might not even really be trying to target the legs, maybe he's just trying to target the glutes. And in that case- It's very hip driven. In that case, it's a great exercise for targeting the glutes. But he's just producing for us in that,

he has super long femurs and super long legs, and we want his squat to look perfect, like some 5'10 Olympic lifter or power lifter, who's not jumping, who's not an athlete. Like, sorry, like when you see some strength, when you see some athletes doing things and it doesn't look to your perfect strength coach standards, these athletes are doing amazing things that you can't fathom.

And then they're doing this. And it's also like, his legs are probably like never in that position. So it's kind of advantageous to are probably like never in that position. So it's kind of advantageous to train that way a little bit, right? When he's playing defense, he's going to be in that position when he's playing defense. Legs might be wide, yeah.

One thing you need to think about is coming down. Let's just think about this real quick. His squat form doesn't look great there. But when a basketball player gets in a defensive position, they're here, and no one can see me behind the desk, but then they're up there. They're scooting from side to side, transitioning, going back, running forward. He gets in that position in game all the time. So is it that bad?

No. I love when he had the guard like smaller guys. He had a hell of a time. He was kind of stuck in that squat position, but he's like 6'8 and he's like 250 pounds or something, or 260 pounds. And he has the most longevity than any other basketball player ever.

And we're over here saying he squats bad. That's pretty good. Oh, but then, you know, the easy cop out that every single person's gonna say, well, LeBron James is a genetic freak. So obviously, nothing else helps. You know, we do have some, there's some athletes that maybe they love training so much that they overdo it.

They love lifting so much. You got, I don't know what the case is with Christian McCaffrey, so I'm just making these things up. But in my opinion, like he trains really hard. He does a lot of stuff in training. And this year, whatever he did in training, something made him unavailable for the actual season. And it's like, man, if you can't think of anything worse,

like it's super unfortunate, and maybe just something bad happened, like who the hell knows exactly what it was. I'm sure someone out there will just say, well, his feet weren't straight. But it can be complicated. And Christian McCaffrey has been in the NFL for a long time. He's also a workhorse.

They give him the ball a lot. He catches the ball to the backfield. He runs the ball a lot. So he has a lot of mileage on him. But to really, truly know like how effective lifting is at all in any capacity for any of these sports is really hard to know. We don't really know.

Cause you got, it gets to be confusing. Got people like Aaron Donald. Remember Aaron Donald played for the Rams, like just absolute animal, just looked like an absolute savage. And then playing the same position, you had Warren Sapp, who just had a big old belly and did not look like an athlete at all.

But Warren Sapp was fast as fuck. He could track people down. He was an amazing player. So it's just really hard to determine how much lifting really helps an athlete. I would say that there's probably a lot of other things that you could do and you can do them in the gym. There's plyo work and there's lots of stuff.

But I would say in general, the things that you have to worry about, those things are usually a problem. And high level athletes are gonna run into problems much later than other people. So they're gonna be able to skate through high school with hardly any problems. They won't even have to think about it.

They'll destroy everyone in high school and they might have to train a little bit, but they won't have to really lift. And then the same thing will happen in college and the same thing can happen in the NFL, depending on how skilled these guys are, rather than the word gifted, something like the word skilled,

is just a different way of looking at it. Because how is Warren Sapp making these crazy plays that we're watching right now? Okay, yeah, he's fast, he's big, he's strong. Like he's got all these different attributes, but he also is reading a play. Technical. There's a lot of shit going on that you just,

that we can't understand even for myself who played football and coached football. I don't know football at this level, the NFL level. Like there's a lot and a lot of scouting. And so he knows, okay, Steve Young hates running to his right, because he's a left-handed quarterback. So I'm going to be able to track him down when he tries. So there's a lot of stuff that goes into these things

that people might not truly know. You know, I think that's why we really need to look at these athletes and just not call them gifted because there's a lot of just movement skill that comes into play here. They're moving their bodies in ways that most people can't. So that's why you see a guy like Warren with his build and then he moves the way he does.

That's not a gift. That's a skill that he's honed and developed over decades. It's legitimately beautiful. It's beautiful to watch. Yeah, I think Larry Bird's a great example. Like he, okay, he was gifted. He got a white guy. He was gifted the six foot nine stature, right?

Well, there's a lot of white guys now in the NBA. Like it's on now. Luka Doncic. We're fucking going at it nowadays. But yeah, Larry Bird, he was gifted the height of being six foot nine. So that's a thing. That's a genetic thing that we don't really know exactly how height happens.

So he was six foot nine and that's great. But he also was extreme. When people think of Larry Bird, they think about how skilled he was. Fluid. Because he could dribble and he could pass and he could shoot. And he also like talked shit, which is kind of great. And he told, would call his shots and stuff like that, which is kind of adds to the lore of everything.

But a lot of these athletes have a skillset that we just don't really, even the guys that maybe are more gifted than the next person, maybe they did start off with a little spark. Maybe they started off with something that made them unique or different. There's still so much work

and still a skillset built into that. Cause I did mention, I mean, I still remember, I remember this like it was yesterday, getting down on the bench for us and like benching with my friends and they could barely move the bar. You know, they were squiggly and stuff. Now I already was lifting a little bit,

but a little bit, just maybe a couple months messing around with like my brothers in the basement. And I remember doing like 95 pounds, 25s on each side for like a couple reps without like a ton of work. So yeah, Larry Bird was a freak. But the way he instinctively knew where that ball was and just went like that, like... But also I think Larry Bird was a guy that I don't think he trained. I don't think he, he may have trained and done some conditioning, but I don't think he lifted. And the second half of his career just sucked.

He was always on the sidelines, laying down on the ground because he had all these back injuries. This is the thing, that's exactly what you said. Maybe it would have made him more robust and same thing with Charles Barkley. And for anybody that wants to clip anything, we're not saying that Larry Bird needed to squat bench and deadlift, but we're saying that Larry Bird needed some resistance. I think one thing that we...

Shorts. And FP knows this too. FP does resistance stuff. So like, yes, resistance, I think you can do it in more ways than just the FP ways. And I think we've all seen that. But... I mean, was anybody lifting back then though? Some guys were probably doing like body weight stuff and some guys were probably doing stuff in the gym, but it seems like it wasn't as popular in these days because you look at them and, you know. There's not really anybody that's like, or stand out.

I think that's an interesting thing you mentioned right there, Andrew, because with how the sports evolved, right? More guys are lifting because you see guys like LeBron who have resistance training, Steph Curry does resistance training. All the guys who want to be durable, all the real athletes, real athletes understand that they need to resistance train. They're not playing in a make-believe thing where they're just walking around and that's their sport. Real athletes understand that I need to make my body durable for my sport, right? And that's why you see so many of them doing it,

but you don't have to do it in the traditional ways. Yeah. Patrick Mahomes comes to mind too. I mean, he's like doing unconventional stuff. A lot of times it's in a gym, but he's doing unconventional stuff. Yeah. I was just gonna ask the question of,

cause like with Christian McCaffrey, right? He trains really hard all off season, and he's recently like with the Niners He had his like first like like full healthy season. Mm-hmm Did the hard work prolong the career or did the hard work in the career early? Cuz like the way that the The way it sounds like he's getting stem cells. He's doing all kinds of stuff and it's not getting any better And so it could look like dude dude, my first thought was like,

holy shit, I hope we get him back for the playoffs. And now I'm like, I wonder if he'll be able to walk without pain for the rest of his life. Like, is his career over? So when you wrestle, like I did professional wrestling for like a handful of years, we would say you only have so many bumps and bumps was like you landing on the ground.

So you only have so many bumps. And bumps was like you landing on the ground. So you only have so many bumps in your lifetime. And I would think the same is true in athletics. So you only have so much capacity to be able to handle the stuff that you're doing. They say that a mouse and an elephant had the same amount of heartbeats in their lifetime. Obviously a mouse heart going a million miles an hour and an elephant's heartbeats going much, much slower,

but they have the same amount of beats. So a player's timeline, almost regardless of how they do it is gonna be a little bit similar. There's some people like Tom Brady who had someone playing in front of him that he could learn from. And then when he came in, it was like, even though he took his team to like Super Bowl,

almost like right away, he got to watch someone else get completely leveled and get taken out of the game. Drew Bledsoe got taken out of the game. And then Tom Brady came in and did all this magical shit. But when somebody comes into a sport and they learn the sport the correct way, and they have time to mature in that sport, maybe a little bit on the bench, and then they migrate into the lineup,

they're gonna be less likely to get as fucked up. Someone like Christian McCaffrey played on a shitty team for a long time, and he didn't have time to really, he knows the game because his dad knew the game. And I mean, he knows the game inside and out. He knows stuff about football that no one else probably even knows because his dad is a Hall of Famer.

But he didn't have that opportunity to like play patty cakes for like year one, two and three and learn everything and then and then move on. And then now he's on such a competitive team like the 49ers that is basically exacerbating the problem because they're so competitive. And then Shanahan has a really good strategy in just beating the shit out of one player consistently by running the ball nonstop. It's really fucking frustrating. Yeah, they, whatever they're doing there, it seems like there's some, it could just be,

you know, it could be just maybe they're not just good enough. I don't know. But like there seems to be something going on where they seem to be wearing out their athletes, but there is, the NFL is messed up right now. Like people are getting hurt way more than normal. And that's a different podcast for a different day because we'll play the clip on the podcast

that we're gonna do today on nutrition, where Ocho Senko talks about people need to eat more McDonald's. I wanna quickly say this. We definitely have to do a podcast on load management for athletes. Kawhi Leonard is famously known when he was on the Raptors. People were like, why is Kawhi not playing?

He's not playing, blah, blah, blah. And Kawhi was talking about his knee. And he gets to the playoffs and wins the Raptors a fucking, you know, a ring. But the reason why is Kawhi understood, like, if I'm going through on this season the way you guys want me to, I'm gonna break myself, right? And I think athletes need to learn

when they need to back off. I'm thankful that I got injured in college and wasn't able to pursue soccer the way I wanted to. Because if I kept training with the knowledge I had then and the understanding at the time of how to take care of my body, I'd be in pain right now in my 30s. But I'm 32 right now and I feel the most athletic that I've ever felt in my 30s. But I'm 32 right now and I feel the most athletic that I've

ever felt in my entire life. Using resistance training, using tools for my movement ability. And I am load managing. I'm not doing Jiu Jitsu every day of the week. I have a hard day of Jiu Jitsu, an easy day of Jiu Jitsu, a mid day of Jiu Jitsu and maybe another mid day of Jiu Jitsu. And then maybe a really light day if I want to go five times. But I'm managing my load because my goal is a world championship. I need to be 100% and better for that world championship. I can't just train myself into death trying to get there

and then get injured before it's even a possibility. Load management is key. And it's understanding how to take care of your body with training and we're gonna get to that later. It's gonna be good. So all in all, I would say if you don't have the genetics, you're screwed. Yep. And lifting's not going to do anything for you.

So I would advise that you're either from Nigeria or French like Indiana, like Larry Bird. Strength is never weak. This week, this is never a strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.